Paper #2 Topics

NOTE: The guidelines for Paper #2 are the same as the guidelines for Paper #1. Please re-read the Paper #1 guidelines before writing this paper.

**AGAIN, all 1st paragraphs are to be emailed to me, while rough drafts and final drafts are to be printed out and handed in BEFORE class on the corresponding due date.

1. Both Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman were long-time students and proponents of the Transcendentalist Philosophy espoused by Ralph Waldo Emerson. From your experience reading both writers, which one succeeds best in capturing the spirit of Emerson’s teaching in their writing? Make sure to account for both the form as well the content these writers use to get their ideas across. In this essay, you should include quotations from Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman to back up your analysis.

2. In this essay, compare Thoreau’s writing in Walden with his Journals. What effect do these contrasting forms (essay and journal) have on the overall meaning and message of the two texts and how do they hinder or help get these messages across? When brainstorming for this essay, please consider that Thoreau eventually came to view the journal as his life’s work, and he largely gave up trying to find commercial success through fiction and essay writing. Please include a number of quotations from both Walden and Thoreau’s Journals.

3. Look closely at either “Young Goodman Brown” or “The Minister’s Black Veil” and identify the dominant tone (the author’s attitude) of the short story. Then set about answering how Hawthorne goes about achieving this tone. When writing this paper, you may find it helpful to discuss literary devices and techniques such as foreshadowing, irony, figurative language, narrative pace, etc. Please include a number of quotations to back up your answer.

4. In this essay, look closely at Thoreau’s Walden, Hawthorne’s “The Minister’s Black Veil,” and Whitman’s “Song of Myself.” and identify the critical component in each author’s view of success. Are there similarities or a common thread that marks these views or is the idea of success particularly different for these three writers?